EQUAL EIGHTS TEAOT 


• ■ Hoi 6i 


f • • 


SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN. 


SPEECH 

BY 

JOHN STTJ^RT MILL, 

IN THE 

BRITISH PARLIAMENT, 

May SOth, 1867. 


I rise, sir, to propose an extension of the suffrage which 
can excite no party or class feeling in the house—which can 
gire no umbrage to the keenest assertor of the claims either 
of property or of numbers; an extension which has not the 
faintest tendency to disturb, what we have heard so much 
about lately, the balance of political power; which cannot 
afflict the most timid alarmist by any revolutionary terrors, 
or offend the most jealous democrat as an infringement of 
popular rights, or a privilege granted to one class of society 
at the expense of another. There is nothing to distract our 
minds from the simple consideration whether there is any 
reasonable ground for excluding an entire half of the Nation, 
not only from actual admission, but from the very possibility 
of being admitted within the pale of citizenship, though they 
may fulfil every one of the conditions legally and constitu¬ 
tionally sufficient in all cases but theirs. This is, under the 
laws of our country, a solitary case. There is no other ex¬ 
ample of an exclusion which is absolute. If it were the law 
'that none should have a vote but the possessors of £5,000 a 
year, the poorest man in the community might, and now and 
then would, attain to the privilege. But neither birth, nor 






2 


SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN. 



merit, nor exertion, nor intellect, nor fortune, nor even that 
great disposer of human affairs—accident, can enable any 
woman to have her voice counted in those common concerns 
which touch her and hers as nearly as any other person in 
the Nation. 

Now, sir, before going any farther, permit me to say that 
prima facie case is already made out. It is not just to 
make distinctions, in rights and privileges, between one of 
Her Majesty’s subjects and another, unless for a positive 
reason. I do not mean that the suffrage, or any other 
political function, is an abstract right, or that to withhold it 
from any one, on sufficient grounds of expediency, is a per¬ 
sonal wrong; it is an utter misunderstanding of the princi¬ 
ple I maintain to confound this with it; my whole argument 
is one of expediency. But all expediencies are not on 
exactly the same level. There is a kind of exj)ediency which 
is called justice; and justice, though it does not necessarily 
demand that we should bestow political rights on every one, 
does demand that we should not capriciously and without 
cause give those rights to one and withhold them from 
another. As was most justly said by my right honorable 
friend, the member for South Lancashire, in the most misun- 
^derstood and misrepresented speech that I ever remember, 
to lay a ground for the denial of the franchise to any one, it 
is necessary to allege either personal unfitness or public dan¬ 
ger. Can either of these be asserted in the present case? 
Can it be pretended that women who manage a property or 
conduct a business, who pay rates and taxes, often to a large 
amount, and often from their own earnings, many of whom 
are responsible heads of families, and some of whom, in the 
capacity of schoolmistresses, teach more than a great many 
of the male electors have ever learnt, are not capable of 
a function of which every male householder is capable ? 
Or is it supposed that, if they were allowed to vote, they 
would revolutionize the State, subvert any of our valuable 
institutions, or that we should have worse laws, or be, in any 


SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEl^', 


3 


single respect, worse governed by means of tlieir suffrage ? 
[Hear, hear.] 

No one thinks anything of the kind; and it is not 
only the general principles of justice that are infringed, 
or at any rate set aside, by excluding women, merely as 
women, from the election of representatives. That exclusion 
is repugnant to the particular principles of the British Con¬ 
stitution. It violates the oldest of our constitutional axioms 
—a principle dear to all reformers, and theoretically acknowl¬ 
edged by conservatives—that tax:ation and representation 
should be co-extensive; that the taxes should be voted by 
those who pay them. Do not women pay taxes ? Does not 
every woman who is sui juris pay exactly the same as a man 
who has the same electoral qualifications ? If having a stake 
in the country means anything, the owner of freehold or 
leasehold property has the same stake, whether it is owned 
by a man or a woman. 

There is evidence in our constitutional records that women 
have voted in counties and in some boroughs at former, 
though certainly distant, periods of history. But the house 
will expect that I should not rest my case on general prin¬ 
ciples, either of justice or of the Constitution, but should 
produce what are called practical arguments. Now I frankly 
admit that one very serious practical argument is entirely 
wanting in the case of women: they do not hold great meet¬ 
ings in Hyde Park—[laughter]—nor demonstrations at Is¬ 
lington. 

How far this omission may be considered to invalidate 
their claims, I will not pretend to say. But other practical 
arguments—practical even in the most restricted sense of 
the term—are not wanting; and I am ready to state them 
if I may first be allowed to ask. Where are the practical 
objections? In general, the difficulty which people feel on 
this subject is not a jDractical objection; there is nothing 
practical in it; it is a mere feeling—a feeling of strangeness. 
The idea is so very new; at least they think so, though that 


4 


SUFFEAGE FOE WOMEN. 


is a mistake: it is a very old idea. Well, sir, strangeness 
is a thing which wears off. Some things were strange enough 
to many of us three months ago which are not at all so now; 
and many which are strange now will not he strange to the 
same person a few years hence, not to say a few months; 
and, as for novelty, we live in a world of novelties. 

The despotism of custom is on the wane: we are not now 
content to know that things are : we ask whether they ought 
to he; and in this house, I am hound to suppose that an ap¬ 
peal lies from custom to a higher tribunal, in which reason 
is judge. Now, the reasons which custom is in the hahit of 
giving for itself on this subject are veiy brief: that, indeed, 
is one of my difficulties. It is not easy to refute an interjec¬ 
tion. Interjections, however, are the only arguments among 
those we usually hear on this subject which it appears to me 
at all difficult to refute. 

The others chiefly consist of such aphorisms as these: Poli¬ 
tics is not women’s business, and would make them neglect 
their proper duties. Women do not desire tlie suffrage, and 
would rather not have it. Women are sufficiently repre¬ 
sented through their male relatives. Women have power 
enough already. I shall perhaps be thought to have 
done enough in the way of answering, when I have an¬ 
swered all these: it may, perhaps, instigate any honorable 
gentleman who takes the trouble of replying to me, to pro¬ 
duce something more recondite. [Hear.] 

Politics, it is said, is not a woman’s business. Well, sir, I 
am not aware that politics is a man’s business either, unless 
he is one of the few who is paid for devoting his time to the 
public service, or is a member of this or of the other house. 
The great majority of male voters have their own business, 
which engrosses nearly the whole of their time; but I have 
never heard that the hours occupied in attending, once in a few 
years, at a polling booth, even if we throw in the time spent in 
reading newspapers and political treatises, has hitherto made 
them neglect their shops or their counting houses. I have not 


SUFFRAGE FOE WOMEX. 


5 


heard that those who have votes are worse merchants, or worse 
lawyers, or worse physicians, or even worse clergymen, than 
other people. One would think that the British Constitution al¬ 
lowed no man to vote who was not able to give up the greater 
part of his time to politics; if that were the case, we should 
have a very limited constituency. 

But let me ask, what is the meaning of political freedom ? 
Is it not the control of those who do make a business of poli¬ 
tics by those who do not ? It is the very principle of consti¬ 
tutional liberty that men come from their looms and their 
forges to decide—and decide well—whether they are prop- 
erly governed, and whom they will be governed by; and 
the nations who prize this privilege, and who exercise it 
fully, are invariably those who excel most in the common 
atbiii's of life. 

The occupations of most women are, and are likely to 
remain, principally domestic; but the idea that those occu¬ 
pations are incompatible with taking an interest in national 
affairs, or in any of the great concerns of humanity, is as 
futile as the terror once sincerely entertained, lest artisans 
should desert the work-shop and the factory if they were 
taught to read. 

I know there is an obscure feeling, a feeling which is 
ashamed to express itself openly, that women have no right 
to care about anything but how they may be the most useful 
and devoted servants of some man. But as I am convinced 
that there is not one member of this house whose conscience 
accuses him of any such mean feeling, I may say that the 
claim to confiscate the whole existence of half the human 
species for the v convenience of the other half, seems to me, 
independently of its injustice, particularly silly. For who 
that has had ordinary experience of human life, and ordi¬ 
nary capacity for profiting by that experience, fancies that 
those do their own business best who understand nothing else ? 
A man has lived to little purpose who has not learned that 
without general mental cultivation no particular work that 


6 


SUFFEAGE FOE WOMEI5'. 


requires understanding can be done in the best manner. It 
requires brains to use practical experience; and brains, even 
without practical experience, go further than any amount 
of practical experience without brains. 

But |>erhaps it is thought that the ordinary occupations of 
women are more antagonistic than men’s occupations are to 
any comprehension of public affairs. Perhaps it is thought 
that those who are principally charged with the moral edu¬ 
cation of the future generations of men must be quite unfit 
to judge of the moral and educational interest of a com¬ 
munity ; or that those whose chief daily business is the judi¬ 
cious laying out of money so as to j^roduce the greatest 
results with the smallest means, could not give any lessons 
to right honorable gentlemen on that side of the house, or on 
this, who produce such singularly small results with such vast 
means. [Laughter.] 

I feel a degree of confidence, sir, on this subject, Avhich I 
could not feel if the political change, in itself not a great or 
formidable one, for which I contend, were not grounded, as 
beneficent and salutary political changes usually are, upon a 
previous social change. The idea of a peremptory and abso¬ 
lute line of separation between men’s province of thought 
and women’s—the notion of forbidding women to take inter¬ 
est in what interests men—belongs to a gone-by state of 
society which is receding farther and farther into the past. 
We think and talk about the political revolutions of the 
Avorld, but we do not pay sufficient attention to the fact that 
there has taken place among us a silent domestic revolution : 
Avomen and men are, for the first time in history, really com¬ 
panions. Our traditions about the proper relations between 
them have descended to us from a time when their lives 
were apart—when they Avere separate in their thoughts 
because they Avere separate both in their amusements and 
ill their serious occupations. The man spent liis hours of 
leisure among men: all his friendships, all his real intima¬ 
cies Avere Avith men: Avith men alone did he conA^erse on 


SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN. 


V 


any serious subject: the wife was either a plaything or an 
upper servant. All this among the educated classes is 
changed: men no longer give up their spare time to violent 
out-door exercise and boisterous conviviality with male 
associates: the home has acquired the ascendency; the two 
sexes noW really pass their lives together: the women of 
the family are the man’s habitual society: the wife is 
his chief associate, his most confidential friend, and often 
his most trusted counsellor, [Cheers.] 

Now, does any man wish to have for his nearest companion, 
linked so closely with himself, and whose wishes and prefer¬ 
ences have so strong a claim upon him, one whose thoughts 
are alien from those which occupy his own mind—one who 
can give neither help nor comfort nor support to his noblest 
feelings and purposes? [Hear, hear.] Is this close and 
almost exclusive companionship compatible with women 
being warned off all large subjects—taught that they ought 
not to care about what it is the man’s duty to care for, and 
that to take part in any serious interests outside the household 
is stepping beyond their province? Is it good for a man to 
pass his life in close communion of thought and feeling with 
a person studiously kept inferior to himself, whose earthly 
interests are forcibly confined within four walls, who is taught 
to cultivate as a grace of character ignorance and indiffer¬ 
ence about the most inspiring subjects, those among which 
his highest duties are cast ? [Hear, hear.] Does any one 
suppose that this can happen without detriment to the man’s 
own character? 

Sir, the time has come when, if women are not raised to the 
level of men, men will be pulled down to theirs. [A laugh.] 
The women of a man’s family are either a stimulus and a sup¬ 
port to his higher aspirations, or a drag upon them. You may 
keep them ignorant of politics, but you cannot keep them 
from concerning themselves with the least respectable part 
of politics—its personalities. If they do not understand, 
and cannot enter into the man’s feelings of public duty, they 


8 


SUFFEAGE FOE WOME1S-. 


do care about liis private interests, and that is the scale into 
which their weight is certain to be thrown. Tliey are an 
influence always at hand, co-operating with his selfish 
promptings, watching and takmg advantage of every mo¬ 
ment of moral irresolution, and doubling the strength of 
every temptation. Even if they maintain a modest neutrality, 
their mere absence of sympathy hangs a dead weight upon 
his moral energies, and makes him averse to incur sacrifices 
which they will feel, and to forego worldly successes and ad¬ 
vantages in which they would share, for the sake of objects 
which they cannot appreciate. But suppose him to be hap¬ 
pily preserved from tenfj^tation to an actual sacrifice of con¬ 
science, the insensible influence on the higher parts of his 
own nature is still deplorable. Under an idle notion that the 
beauties of character of the two sexes are mutually incom¬ 
patible, men are afraid of manly women [a laugh] ; but those 
who have reflected on the nature and power of social influ¬ 
ences, know that, when there are not manly women, there 
Avill not much longer be manly men. [Laughter.] When 
men and women are really companions, if women are 
frivolous, men will be frivolous; if women care only 
for personal interests and trifling amusements, men in gen¬ 
eral will care for little else. The two sexes must now rise 
or sink together. 

It may be said that women can take interest in 
great national questions without having a vote. They 
can, certainly; but how many of them will? All that 
society and education can do is exhausted in inculcating on 
women that the rule of their conduct ought to be what soci¬ 
ety expects from them, and the denial of the vote is a proc¬ 
lamation, intelligible to every one, that society does not ex¬ 
pect them to concern themselves with public interests. 
Why, the whole of a girl’s thoughts and feelings are toned 
down by it from her earliest school-days; she does not take 
the interest, even in national history, that a boy does, because 
it is to be no business of hers when she grows up. If there 


SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEIH'. 


9 


are women, and fortunately there now are, who do care 
about these subjects, and study them, it is because the force 
Avithin is poAverful enough to bear up against the Avorst kind 
of discouragement, that Avhich acts not by interposing ob¬ 
stacles Avhich may be struggled against, but by deadening 
the spirit which faces and conquers obstacles. 

We are told that Avomen do not wish for the suffrage. If 
this be so, it only proves that nearly all Avomen are still un¬ 
der this deadening influence, that the opiate still benumbs 
their mind and conscience. But there are many AVomen Avho 
do desire the sufii-age, and have claimed it by petitions to this 
house. Hoav do we knoAV how many more thousands there are 
AA^ho have not asked for Avhat they do not hope to get, or for 
fear of being ill thought of by men or by other Avomen, or 
from the feeling so sedulously cultivated by the Avhole of their 
education—aversion to make themselves conspicuous. 

Men must have a great faculty of self-delusion if they sup- 
l^ose that leading questions put to the ladies of their families, 
or of their acquaintance, Avill elicit their real sentiments, or 
Avill be ansAvered with entire sincerity by one woman in ten 
thousand. No one is so well schooled as most Avomen are 
in making a Aurtue of necessity. It costs little to disclaim 
caring for AAdiat is not offered; and frankness in expressing 
feelings that may be disagreeable or unflattering to their 
nearest connections, is not one of the virtues which a Avoman’s 
education tends to cultivate. It is, moreover, a virtue at¬ 
tended Avith sufficient risk to induce prudent women to re¬ 
serve its exercise for cases in Avhich there is some nearer in¬ 
terest to be j^romoted by it. 

At all events, those Avho do not care for the suflTrage Avill 
not use it. Either they Avill not register, or if they do^ they 
Avill vote as their male relatives advise them, by Avhich, as the 
advantage Avould probably be about equally shared among 
all classes, no harm would be done. Those, whether they 
be few or many, Avho do value the privilege, Avould exercise it, 
and Avould experience that stimulus to their faculties, and that 


10 


SUFFEAGE FOR WOMEN. 


widening and liberalizing influence on their feelings and sym¬ 
pathies which the sufii*age seldom fails to exert over every 
class that is admitted to a share in it. Meanwhile, an un- 
Avorthy stigma Avould have been taken off the Avhole sex, the 
law Avould have ceased to stamp them as incapable of serious 
things, Avould have ceased to proclaim that their opinions 
and Avishes do not deserve to have any influence in things 
which concern them equally with men, and in many that con¬ 
cerned them much more than men. They would no longer be 
classed Avith children, idiots and lunatics—[laughter and 
cheers]—as incapable of taking care either of themseh^es or 
others, and needing that everything should be done for them 
Avithout asking for their consent. If no more than one woman 
in tAventy thousand used the A"Ote, it Avould be a gain to all 
women to be declared capable of using it. Even so purely 
theoretical an enfranchisement Avould remove an artifleial 
weight from the expansion of their faculties, the real evil 
of which is far greater than the apparent. 

Then, it is said that Avomen do not need direct political 
poAver, because they liaA^e so much indirect through the influ¬ 
ence they possess over their male relatives and connections. 
[Laughter.] Sir, I should like to try this argument in other 
cases. Rich people liaAm a great deal of indirect influence. Is 
this a reason for denying them a Amte ? [Cheers.] Did any 
one ever propose a rating qualification the wrong Avay, and 
bring in a reform bill to disfranchise everybody aaAio IRes in 
a £500 house, or pays £100 a year in direct taxes? [Hear, 
hear.] Unless this rule for distributing the franchise is to be 
reserved for the exclusive benefit of Avomen, the legitimate 
consequence of it Avould be that persons above a certain 
amount of fortune should be alloAved to bribe, but should 
not be allowed to Amte. [Laughter.] 

Sir, it is true that women have already great poAver. 
It is part of my case that they have great poAver. But 
they have it under the Avorst possible conditions, be¬ 
cause it is indirect, and, therefore, irresponsible. [Hear, 


SUFFEAGE FOR WOMEN. 


11 


hear.] I want to make that power a responsible power. 
[Hear, hear.] I want to make the woman feel lier conscience 
interested in its honest exercise. I want to make her feel 
that it is not given to her as a mere means of personal as¬ 
cendency. I want to make her influence work by a manly 
interchange of opinions, and not by cajolery. [Laughter and 
cheers.] I want to awaken in her the political point of honor. 
At present many a Avoman greatly influences the political con¬ 
duct of her male connections, sometimes by force of Avill ac¬ 
tually gOA'erns it; but she is never supposed to have anything 
to do Avith it. The man she influences, and perhaps misleads, 
is alone responsible. Her jAOAver is like the back-stairs influ¬ 
ence of a favorite. The poor creature is nobody, and all is re¬ 
ferred to the man’s superior wisdom; and as, of course, 
he Avill not gHe way to her if he ought not, she may 
Avork upon him through all his strongest feelings Avithout 
incurring any responsibility. Sir, I demand that all Avho ex¬ 
ercise power should have the burden laid upon them of 
knoAAung something about the things they ha§^e poAver over. 
With the admitted right to a A^oice wonld come a sense of 
the corresponding duty. 

A Avoman is not generally inferior in tenderness of con¬ 
science to a man. Make her a moral agent in matters of 
public conduct. ShoAV that you require from her a political 
conscience, and Avhen she has learnt to understand the trans¬ 
cendent importance of these things, she Avill see Avhy it is 
Avrong to sacrifice political convictions for lAcrsonal interest 
and A^anity; she Avill understand that political honesty is 
not a foolish j)ersonal crotchet, Avhich a man is bound, for the 
sake of his family, to give iq), but a serious duty; and the 
men Avhom she can influence Avill be better men in all public 
relations, and not, as they often are at present, Avorse men 
by the Avhole effect of her influence. [Hear, hear.] 

But, at all events, it Avill be said Avomen, as Avomen, do not 
suffer any practical inconvenience by not being represented. 
The interests of all AVomen are safe in the hands of their 


12 


SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN. 


fathers, husbands and brothers, whose interest is the same 
with theirs, and who, besides knowing bett,er than they do 
what is good for them, care a good deal more for them than 
they care for themselves. 

Sir, this is exactly what has been said of all other unrepre¬ 
sented classes—the operatives, for instance; are they not 
all virtually represented through their emj)loyers ? are not 
the interests of the employer and that of the employed, 
when properly understood, the same? To insinuate the 
contrary, is it not the horrible crime of setting class 
against class ? Is not the farmer interested along with his 
laborer in the prosperity of agriculture ? Has not the cot¬ 
ton manufacturer as great an interest in the high price of 
calicoes as his w^orknian ? Is not the employer interested as 
well as his men in the repeal of taxes ? Have not employer 
and employed a common interest against outsiders, just as 
man and wife have against all outside the family ? And are not 
all employers kind, benevolent, charitable men, who love their 
work-people, gnd always know and do what is most for 
their good ? Every one of these assertions is exactly as true 
as the parallel assertion respecting men and women. Sir, we 
are not living in Arcadia, but, as we were lately reminded, in 
foecG Romidi ; and in that region workmen need other pro¬ 
tection than that of their masters, and women than that ot 
their men. 

I should like to see a return laid before the house of 
the number of women who are annually beaten to death, 
kicked to death, or trodden to death, by their male pro¬ 
tectors. [Hear, hear.] I should like tliis document to 
contain, in an opposite column, a return of the sentences 
passed in those cases in which the dastardly criminal 
did not get olf altogether; and in a third column a com¬ 
parative view of the amount of property, tlie unlawful taking 
of which had, in the same sessions or assizes, by the same 
judge, been thought wortliy of the same degree of punish¬ 
ment. [Cheers.] Wc should thus obtain an arithmetical 


SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN. 


13 


estimate of the value set by a male legislature and male tri¬ 
bunals upon the murder of a woman by a habitual torture, 
often prolonged for years, which, if there be any shame in 
us, would make us hang our heads. [Cheers.] 

Sir, before it is contended that women do not suifer in their 
interests, especially as women, by not being represented, it 
must be considered whether women, as women, have no griev¬ 
ances—whether the law, and those practices which law can 
reach, treat women in every respect as favorably as men. Well, 
sir, is that the case ? As to education, for example, we con¬ 
tinually hear it said that the education of mothers is the 
most important part of the education of tlie country, because 
they educate the men. Is as much importance really attached 
to it ? Are there many fathers who care as much, or are 
willing to expend as much, for the good education of their 
daughters as of their sons? Where are the universities, 
where the public schools, where the schools of any high de¬ 
scription for them ? [Hear.] 

If it is said that girls are best educated at home, where are 
the training schools for governesses ? What has become of 
the endowments which the bounty of our forefathers estab¬ 
lished for the instruction, not of boys alone, but of boys and 
girls indiscriminately ? I am informed by one of the highest 
authorities on the subject that, in the majority of the deeds 
of endowment, the provision was for education generally, and 
not especially for boys. One great endowment—Christ’s 
Hospital—was designated expressly for both. That estab¬ 
lishment maintains and educates one thousand one hundred 
boys, and exactly twenty-six girls. 

Then when they have attained womanhood, how does it fare 
with the large and increasing portion of the sex, who, though 
sprung from the educated classes, have not inherited a pro¬ 
vision ; and, not having obtained one by marriage, or dis¬ 
daining to marry merely for a provision, depend on their 
exertions for support ? Hardly any decent educated occupa¬ 
tion, save one, is open to them. They are either governesses, 
or nothing. 


14 


SUFFKAGE FOR WOMEN’. 


A fact has quite recently occurred which is worth 
commemorating. A young lady. Miss Garrett, from no 
pressure of necessity, but from an honorable desire to find 
scope for her activity in alleviating the sufferings of her 
fellow creatures, applied herself to the study of medicine. 
Having duly qualified herself, she, with an energy and per¬ 
severance which cannot be too highly praised, knocks suc¬ 
cessively at every one of the doors through which, in this 
country, a student can pass into medical practice. Having 
found every other door fast shut, she at last discovered one 
which had been accidentally left ajar. The Society of Apoth¬ 
ecaries, it appears, had forgotten to shut out those whom 
they never thought would attempt to come in; and through 
that narrow entry this young lady obtained admission into the 
medical profession. But so objectionable did it appear to 
this learned body that women should be permitted to be the 
medical attendants, even of women, that the narrow wicket 
which Miss Garrett found open, has been closed after 
her, and no second Miss Garrett is to be suffered to pass 
through it. [Cheers.] 

Sir, this is instar omnium. As soon as ever women be¬ 
come capable of successfully competing with men in any 
career, if it be lucrative and honorable, it is closed to 
them. A short time ago women could be associates of the 
Koyal Academy; but they were so distinguishing them¬ 
selves, they were taking so honorable a rank in their art 
that this privilege, too, has been taken from them. That is 
the kind of care taken of women by the men who so faith¬ 
fully represent them. [Cheers.] That is our treatment of 
unmarried women, and now about the married. 

They, it may be said, are not directly concerned in the 
amendment which I have moved, but it concerns many who 
have been married as well as others who will be so. By 
the common law of England, everything that a woman 
has belongs absolutely to her husband; he may tear it 
all away from her, may spend the last penny of it in de- 


SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN. 


15 


baiichery, leaving her to maintain by her labor both her¬ 
self and her children; and if, by heroic exertion, she earns 
enough to put by anything for their future support, un¬ 
less she is judicially separated from him, he can pounce 
upon her savings and leave her. penniless; and such cases 
are of very common occurrence. If we were besotted 
enough to think such things right, there would be more 
excuse for us; but we know better. The richer classes have 
found a way of exempting their own daughters from this in¬ 
iquitous state of the law. By the contrivance of marriage 
settlements, they can make in each case a private law for 
themselves, and they always do. Why do we not provide 
that justice for the daughters of the poor which we take good 
care shall be done to our own daughters? Why is not what 
is done in every particular case that we personally care for 
made the general law of the land ?—that a poor man’s child, 
whose parents could not afford the expense of a settlement, 
may be able to retain any little property which may devolve 
on her, and may have a voice in the disposal of her own 
earnings, often the best and only reliable part of the susten¬ 
ance of the family ? [Hear.] I am sometimes asked what prac¬ 
tical grievance I propose to remedy by enabling women to 
vote. I propose, for one thing, to remedy this. I have given 
these few instances to prove that women are not the petted 
favorites of society which some people seem to imagine; that 
they have not that abundance, that superfluity of influence, 
which is ascribed to them, and are not sufficiently represent¬ 
ed by the representation of those who have never cared to 
do in their behalf so obvious an act of justice. Sir, griev¬ 
ances of less magnitude than the laws of the property of 
married women, when affecting persons and classes less in¬ 
ured to passive endurance, have j^rovoked revolutions. 

We ought not to take advantage of the security which we 
feel against any such danger in the present case to refuse to a 
limited class of women that small amount of participation in 
the enactment and the improvement of our laws which this 


16 


'SUFFRAGE FOE WOMEN’. 


motion solicits for them, and which would enable the* gen¬ 
eral feelings of women to be heard in this house through a 
few male representatives. We ought not to deny to them 
what we are going to accord to everybody else: a right to 
be consulted; the common chance of placing in the great 
council of the nation a few organs of their sentiments; of 
having what every petty trade or profession has—a few 
members of the legislature, with a special call to stand up 
for their interests, and direct attention to the mode in which 
those interests are affected, by the law or by any changes in 
it. No more is asked by this motion; and Avhen the time 
comes, as it is certain to come, when this will be conceded, I 
feel the firmest conviction that you will never repent of the 
concession. I move, sir, that the word “man” be omitted, 
and the word “person” inserted in its place. [Cheers, cheers.] 

There were 73 votes for Mr. Mill’s amendment, 196 against 
it—it was lost, therefore, by 123 votes. 

The Tribune correspondent says: “ Some of the greatest 

intellects in Parliament, and nearly all the young men on 
whom the future of England depends, made an honorable 
record on this great question. Among them were Hughes, 
Stansfield, Taylor, Lord Amberley, Oliphant, Mr. Denman, 
Mr. Fawcett, the O’Donoghue, and the sturdy old Roman 
Catholic Sir George Bowyer.” 


Tracts published at the office of the American E(iual Rights Association, 37 Park 
Row, (Room 17,) New York : 

Enfranchisement of Women, by Mrs. John Stuart Mili. 

Suffrage for Women, by John Stuart Mill, M. P. 

Freedom for Women, by "Wendell Phillips. 

Public Function of Woman, by Theodore Parker. 

"tVoman and her Wi.shes, by Col. T. Sv. Higginson. 

Responsibilities of Women, by Mrs. C. D. H. Nichols. 

Woman’s Influence in Politics, by Henry Ward Beecher. 

Universal Suffrage, by Elizabeth Cady Stanton. 

The Mortality of Nations, by Parker Pillsbury. 

Should Women Vote? Affirmative Testimonials of Seventy Persons 


Price, Per Single Copy. 05 cts. 

“ Per Hundred Copies. $3 oo 

“ Per Thousand Copies. 25 00 


Orders should be addressed to Susan B. Anthony, Secretary American E. R. Asso* 
ication, 37 Park Row, (Room 17,) New York. 







